Tools & Apps Introduction/knowledge development/assessing/utilizing/application

[ted$95]

I have really been doing everything through ebay either on my iphone or my laptop. I understand that there are other tools available to assist us/me to be more efficient as my business grows. Some of those tools listed in the changes coming up with categories etc were:  the Sell Your Item Form, Bulk Edit and Relist, Turbo Lister, or even File Exchange, How do I know which one to use first or get to know and learn so it is most effecitve with my business? I have looked into some in my spare time and quite honestly some of the reviews are scary and leave me not wnating to change what isnt broken, yet at the same time I need to find ways to work smarter not harder. Any suggestions, experience, thoughts would be welcome. Thank you all so much!

[shipscript]

@ted$95

• SYI (Advanced Sell Your Item listing form)
• BEAR (Bulk Edit and Relist)
• TL (Turbo Lister)
• FE (File Exchange)

While the TL desktop program might be a reasonable solution at this stage of your business, it is close to retirement and there are no current plans to evolve it as eBay evolves, so I would not recommend learning that tool.

The advanced online SYI listing form is likely what you are currently using, so you are already familiar with its one-at-a-time limitation. It may be best for generating listings for widely varying items where every listing is a unique scenario. And "Sell Similar" is a pretty handy way to put up a bunch of related items, where you can change the photo, a few Item Specifics and price, and add the description.

eBay's online BEAR tool will allow you to create multiple similar listings all at once, and that may be the way to go with all of your similar listings.  BEAR can be accessed from Seller Hub. You could pick a day of the week to list all blouses, and another day to list all shoes so that similar items can be grouped in the workload.  You would start by adding all the similar features for one listing and BEAR will propagate through and generate the number of listings you select. After those are displayed in spreadsheet fashion, you can change the cells that vary, like price, item specifics, detailed description, and photos.  At your current volume and similarity of items, this looks to me to be the most efficient.

With FE, you would compile your data in a desktop spreadsheet and then upload the file to FE.  This method is a little different because the photos must be hosted externally on an outside website and only their URLs are added to the data upload.  But once you become accustomed to the easy spreadsheet format of BEAR, you will find FE to be a lot easier to learn than if it were tackled cold. With FE, the hardest part is just setting up all the correct columns in a spreadsheet.  Once the columns are nailed down, populating all those columns with your listing details is probably the fastest way to upload hundreds and thousands of items.

So, for growing your business, I would recommend using BEAR to create bulk listings of similar items. If your volume picks up a lot, then move that spreadsheet offline where others can assist with data entry, and create files for upload to FE.

One aspect not mentioned here is third-party listing tools. There are a number of online and desktop tools provided by others. Since I have not used any of them, I wouldn't be able to comment.

[ted$95]

Thank you so much for taking the time to be so thorough. I really appreciate it.

[vintage-car-magazines]

@ted$95

Hi Ted,

As Shipscript mentioned, there are also third party tools that may give you what you need. I use one called SixBit and can give it an outstanding recommendation.

You can read more in this review https://ebaylistingtoolreview.weebly.com/